All Forum Posts by: Adam Stanton

Mike,

Ditto what @Justin Pierce said.  Deal flow is tough.  I've moved away from NOVA to areas south and west, which is better but not by much.  Something else to consider, if you don't have your RE license you'll be wasting loads of your precious time running around with an agent. Check out podcast 81 on finding deals with smart marketing.  

Do you have a particular style of home you're looking for e.g. Ramblers, Cape's, classic (craftsmen) modern etc?  I found there a lot of homes in NOVA that have hideous additions.  Especially the Ramblers where second and third stories were added.  Tons of house, but no yard.  These things look terrible and stand out in an otherwise picturesque neighborhood.  I wonder if there's a market for deconstructing them back to normal?

We went with a conventional loan from a local broker, 20% down at 4.25.  I wanted a 30yr, in order to maximize cash flow but because the price was so low the loan officer assumed I wanted 15.  I didn't catch this until the day of closing, by then too late.  It cost me a little less than $100 a month in cash flow.  I was fuming.  It was my fault though for not checking his work. 

Just finished my first buy and hold in Richmond. There's good opportunities there but lots of competition as well. I recommend taking a few weekends to drive around and learn the neighborhoods. Try not to buy off the MLS, it's too time consuming.

Hit wrong button

Anyway, got my first rental off and running.  Bought a small 3/1 for 55k in mid October in Richmond Va.  Place is in great condition.  I started marketing for renters a week before closing.  I quickly learned it's best to be as frictionless as possible when looking for renters.  I made the process too difficult at first and probably scared away a few reasonable tenants.  I also learned that people respond much more quickly to text message as opposed to email and phone.  However, I still had a few applicants pull no-shows, and I live an hour from the house.  Looking forward to writing off all those trips.  

I used rocket lease for application screening.  I liked the simplicity of it.  I use spark rent for monthly rent.  I started at $875/m which turned out to be a bit high.  I dropped to 825 and got lots of responses.  There was a random week where nothing came in, still not sure why.  I finally rented it 10 days after closing for 815/m to a quality tenant.  They passed all the background checks, income verifications and I just got a good gut feeling about them.    

Big thanks to @Brian Rhodes for his quality counsel.  Your carpet guy was awesome by the way.

Now that I have this deal under my belt my next goal is to purchase another rental without using MLS, because thats just too time consuming. And to do it without using my own funds for down payment. At least not 20%.

Got my first rental

@Bryan N. when using my rental.com, do they require prior authorization from the prospective tenant?  Couldn't find the answer on the website.  Sites like tenant turner and mysmartmove do.  Just curious.  

@Bill Dyer is right.  There are so many different ways to find deals.  I've learned that once you get a clue to how this all works, agents are more of a hinderance than a helper.  So if you haven't yet, get your license.  

I'm a big fan of figuring out where the heard is going and do the exact opposite.  

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-10/trailer-p...

@Bill Morris 

Forget MLS. Too much competition from rookie investors who will over bid you every time, skimp on repair costs and put a bad product back on the market. That's not how you want to do business. Deal flow is horrible too and the numbers just never work out right. Plus, how long do you want to drive around with the agents looking at properties you likely won't get anyway? It's a terrible wast of time. You want sellers to come to you.

Not sure what @Bill G meant, but there is tons of fundamental education on this site.  Dive in to the podcasts if you haven't already.  

Hey @Brian Rhodes. Agreed, all this is good stuff. BP is an I credible resource and made this experience much more enjoyable. Got a couple more biters this weekend. I changed the description a little and added the income requirement. Also decided to take background check costs off 1st month for the who are approved. Going to add some. Ore pictures soon too. 

I like @Trevor Ewen idea of going just below market. Think I may do that. 

@Shera Gregory @Bryan Neal @Aly L

Good info, plenty to think about.  I'm convinced I'll get it rented, just would like to do it soon so I'm not stressing over the holidays and losing money.  I'll send you all Christmas cards.

@Kirk R

Tenantturner.com (TT) posts my listing on a bunch of sites (CL, Zillow ect).  Potential renters are driven back to TT from these sites and contact me.  I email them with some basic info and my application.  If everything looks good including income I show the house.  If they want it I go back to TT and click on "perform background check."  At this point the tenant is charged the $40.